Aaron Judge Is Back — Now the Yankees Need Him for the Games That Matter

Aaron Judge is coming back.

Finally.

The Yankees are set to put their captain back in the lineup Tuesday night against Colorado after more than three months on the injured list, and I don't think there is a Yankees fan alive who needs me to explain how big that is. Judge has been out since the end of May with a stress fracture of the first rib on his right side, an injury that the Yankees officially announced on June 5 after he had apparently been playing through discomfort for weeks. He believes the injury may have originated on a diving attempt in Houston on April 26, and he continued playing for more than a month before the pain finally became too much.

By the time he returns, Judge will have missed 84 games.

That is not a normal little IL stint where a superstar misses two weeks, comes back and everybody moves on. He basically lost half a season. Judge appeared in only 59 games before going down and was hitting .248/.375/.533 with 17 home runs and 38 RBIs. Even in what was not remotely his best offensive stretch by his ridiculous standards, he still posted a .908 OPS and continued hitting the baseball as hard as almost anyone in the sport. His average exit velocity this year is 94.1 mph, with a 57.3 percent hard-hit rate and a 21.7 percent barrel rate.

And this is where I think Yankees fans need to appreciate what the team actually did without him.

They survived.

That sounds simple, but losing Aaron Judge for 84 games is like asking an NFL team to play half a season without its quarterback. There is no replacing him. You aren't finding another 50-homer, MVP-level right-handed bat sitting on the bench. The Yankees went 45-39 without Judge, which is obviously not some dominant stretch, but it was enough to keep them right in the playoff race despite Judge being out and despite dealing with other injuries around the roster.

At the same time, anyone who watched the Yankees throughout the summer knows the offense did not exactly thrive without him.

From June 1 through mid-August, New York ranked 30th in batting average at .217, tied for 28th in OPS at .666 and 28th in runs scored. Another breakdown of the Judge-less stretch had the Yankees at a 90 wRC+, which ranked 29th in baseball. Before Judge got hurt, they had been among the best offenses in MLB. Once he disappeared from the middle of the lineup, the entire identity of the offense changed.

That's not exactly shocking.

When Judge is hitting second or third, pitchers have to navigate the entire lineup differently. They can't work around everybody. They can't be as aggressive in certain counts. There is always the possibility that one mistake turns into a baseball landing 450 feet away.

Without him, suddenly those margins disappear.

The Yankees had to become a team that won games in different ways.

Ben Rice has continued to become one of the most important hitters on the roster. Cody Bellinger has had stretches where he carried the offense. Jazz Chisholm Jr. has provided power and athleticism. Spencer Jones has increasingly forced his way into meaningful playing time and had recently been swinging the bat particularly well, including a stretch where he hit around .300 with an OPS approaching .900. Even Austin Wells has delivered some important hits in close games.

That is probably the best thing to come out of Judge's absence.

The Yankees were forced to learn that every important at-bat cannot begin and end with Aaron Judge.

We've watched too many postseason Yankee teams over the years where the basic strategy seemed to be, “Hopefully Judge hits a three-run homer.”

That can work.

Aaron Judge is pretty good.

But it is also exactly how you end up getting shut down by elite playoff pitching when Judge goes 0-for-4 and nobody else picks him up.

This year's injuries forced the rest of the roster to grow up a little.

Now you put Judge back into that lineup.

That is where this becomes interesting.

The Yankees enter the final stretch at 81-62, four games behind Tampa Bay in the American League East with 19 games remaining, while sitting two games ahead of Boston for the top AL Wild Card spot.

So yes, the division is still technically alive.

But the clock is basically screaming at them now.

Four games is not impossible with 19 left.

It also isn't something where you can say, “We'll make our move next week.”

Next week is now.

If the Rays go 10-9 the rest of the way, the Yankees need to go 14-5 just to draw even before accounting for tiebreakers. Tampa Bay also remains an excellent team, although it recently lost Shane McClanahan to the injured list with forearm tightness, which at least creates another wrinkle in the race.

So the division isn't dead.

But I would describe it as an uphill sprint.

Judge coming back gives them a chance to make that sprint.

The bigger question is whether fans should actually expect Aaron Judge to immediately look like Aaron Judge.

I don't think we should.

And I also don't think that should bother anybody.

Judge is skipping a Minor League rehab assignment and jumping directly into a major-league lineup after not seeing competitive pitching for more than three months. He has been taking batting practice, tracking pitches and gradually increasing the intensity of his workouts, but there is no version of simulated work that perfectly replicates a 98 mph fastball followed by a major-league slider with 40,000 people screaming around you.

Timing is going to take time.

He may look late on fastballs.

He may chase a couple breaking balls that he normally spits on.

He might go 1-for-12 during his first series and immediately cause Yankees Twitter to

collectively lose its mind.

That's fine.

I don't need MVP Judge this week.

I need healthy Judge in October.

That should be the entire goal.

Aaron Boone has indicated Judge may be eased back into the workload with designated-

hitter days and limitations in the field while his body readjusts to playing every day.

Considering the injury involves his rib cage and Judge is 6-foot-7, 280 pounds and plays right field like somebody half his size, I am completely fine with wrapping him in bubble wrap when necessary.

Do I want him in right field eventually?

Of course.

Judge being able to play the field gives Boone significantly more flexibility with the DH

spot, particularly with Giancarlo Stanton and other veterans.

But we're past the point where proving something in September matters.

If he needs to DH three or four times a week to keep that rib completely healthy, put him at DH.

If he needs an off day after three consecutive games, give him the day.

If he needs to come out in the seventh inning of a 7-2 game instead of diving into the right-field corner trying to save a meaningless double, take him out.

The Yankees have spent more than three months trying to get him to this point.

Do not get stupid now.

And I think Judge himself probably understands this better than anybody.

He wanted to come back.

He repeatedly said throughout the summer that he believed he would return this season and made it pretty clear that he wasn't interested in wasting many of his remaining at-bats in rehab games. At one point he essentially described getting his timing back as something he expected to be closer to riding a bike than starting Spring Training from scratch.

That's Aaron Judge.

The guy always thinks he can play.

Sometimes the Yankees need to protect him from Aaron Judge.

What excites me most isn't necessarily the possibility that he comes back and hits 12 homers over the final three weeks.

That would be awesome.

But it isn't what I'm expecting.

I'm more interested in what his presence does to everyone around him.

Suddenly Ben Rice isn't being asked to be the biggest threat in the lineup every night.

Bellinger gets better pitches.

Jazz gets different matchups.

Spencer Jones might see more fastballs.

Pitchers can't simply navigate the lineup looking for one guy to avoid.

And that matters tremendously in October.

Judge doesn't even have to be peak Judge to change a baseball game.

If he's walking twice because nobody wants to pitch to him, that's two baserunners.

If a pitcher throws Bellinger a fastball because Judge is standing in the on-deck circle,

Judge impacted the at-bat without touching the baseball.

That effect gets amplified in the postseason.

The other part of this that shouldn't be ignored is simply the emotional side of getting your captain back.

The Yankees have spent the entire summer answering questions about Judge.

When is he getting imaging?

When can he swing?

When will he start running?

Does he need a rehab assignment?

Is he coming back this year?

Can the Yankees survive without him?

Now those questions stop.

The guy walks back into Yankee Stadium wearing No. 99 and batting somewhere near the

top of the lineup.

Everybody else can go back to doing their job.

And there is something else about the timing that I actually like.

If Judge had returned in early August, maybe everybody starts expecting him to

immediately rescue the season.

Now?

There isn't enough time for that nonsense.

The Yankees already know what they are.

They are a good team that survived three months without their best player.

They have flaws.

The infield still isn't completely settled. Trent Grisham is dealing with another hamstring

injury that could threaten the rest of his regular season. There are still questions in the bullpen. There are still days where the offense looks allergic to scoring runs.

Judge isn't fixing all of that.

What he can do is make all of it easier to overcome.

That's the difference.

The Yankees don't need Aaron Judge to come back and save them.

They need Aaron Judge to come back and complete them.

As a fan, my expectations for the next couple weeks are actually pretty simple.

Give me healthy at-bats.

Give me improving timing.

Give me a few balls hit 115 mph just so I know the machine still works.

Give me Judge gradually getting comfortable in right field.

Give me the Yankees staying close enough to Tampa that the final week matters.

And above everything else, give me Aaron Judge walking into Game 1 of the postseason

physically capable of being Aaron Judge.

If he hits eight home runs before then and somehow helps steal the AL East? Beautiful.

I will happily start talking myself into another division title.

But the real championship chase begins in October.

The Yankees somehow kept themselves alive for 84 games without the best hitter on their roster.

They don't have to do that anymore.

Aaron Judge is back.

Now get him ready for the games we've been waiting all year to play